AN ARMY HOSPITAL WARD
Let me specialize a visit I made to the collection of barrack-like
one-story edifices, Campbell hospital, out on the flats, at the end
of the then horse railway route, on Seventh street. There is a
long building appropriated to each ward. Let us go into ward 6. It
contains, to-day, I should judge, eighty or a hundred patients,
half sick, half wounded. The edifice is nothing but boards, well
whitewash'd inside, and the usual slender-framed iron bedsteads,
narrow and plain. You walk down the central passage, with a row on
either side, their feet towards you, and their heads to the wall.
There are fires in large stoves, and the prevailing white of the
walls is reliev'd by some ornaments, stars, circles, &c., made of
evergreens. The view of the whole edifice and occupants can be taken
at once, for there is no partition. You may hear groans or other
sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three of the cots, but in
the main there is quiet--almost a painful absence of demonstration;
but the pallid face, the dull'd eye, and the moisture of the lip, are
demonstration enough. Most of these sick or hurt are evidently young
fellows from the country, farmers' sons, and such like. Look at the
fine large frames, the bright and broad countenances, and the many
yet lingering proofs of strong constitution and physique. Look at the
patient and mute manner of our American wounded as they lie in such
a sad collection; representatives from all New England, and from New
York, and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania--indeed from all the States
and all the cities--largely from the west.
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